Sharon fiddled with the ancient cigarette pack for a minute before continuing. "And he'd fooled around with his grades, too. Given himself straight A's and credit for courses he hadn't even taken. I was young and stupid and thought I could get through to him about why this was wrong, wrong, wrong. But he kept talking. Told me about some of the other students he'd 'fixed.' That was the word he used. He'd created his own 'enemies' list — people he imagined had crossed him in some way. He'd done the opposite with them. Lowered their grades, deleted courses. That's when I knew I had to get away from him."
“Were any of the neighbors on the 'enemy' list?" Shelley asked.
“I don't know. It was so long ago and he only mentioned first names. When their grades came out, I'm sure it was just blamed on some kind of mysterious computer error anyway," Sharon said.
“Not if he bragged to other people as well as you," Jane said.
“Still, I can't imagine anyone holding a grudge over a grade for fifteen years or more and then killing someone over it, can you?"
“No, I guess not. So you divorced him?”
Sharon nodded. "But I got several notarized printouts of my college transcript first," she said with a smile. I was getting smarter by the minute. I used those to apply to other schools so that it wouldn't show on my record where I'd asked for copies to go, then I filed the divorce papers and left him."
“Is that when you came here?" Jane asked.
“No, I finished my undergraduate courses in Vermont and got my law degree in Massachusetts. Then I got a job here. I wasn't deliberately moving around, it just worked out that way. But what I didn't realize is that he was sort of stalking me. I don't think the word was in common use then, but that's what he was doing. One day about three years ago, he turned up on my doorstep. I'd worked with a firm that had a branch in Kentucky and somehow he spotted my name in the property records."
“Did he threaten you?" Shelley asked.
“Oh, no. Not directly. Just said he'd changed, turned his 'curiosity,' as he called it, to good ends — exposing graft and corruption and dishonesty. And that he thought I'd like him better now and we might as well get back together. He'd followed me to Chicago and gotten a job with a local television station so we could be together.”
She shuddered at the memory.
“What did you do?" Jane asked.
“Nothing for a while. I'd put on a bit of weight, gotten rather stuffy and dull and I thought he'd give up and go away. But he didn't. He called every day. I got frightened."
“Of course you did. Did you call the police?"
“Yes, but it didn't do much good." The cellophane wrapper on the cigarette pack was in shreds now. "He'd made no overt threats, didn't break into my house or anything like that. He wasn't a clear danger to me from their viewpoint, only a nuisance. And I suppose, in a way, they were right. I don't honestly think he'd have committed any physical violence. Just psychological and financial. Every time I booted up my computer at work, I could imagine him hunched over his, tapping into my life and the life of my clients. At least some good came of it," she said with a smile. "I insisted that the law firm get the most 'hacker-proof' computer system we could find."
“Why did you come to the caroling party then?" Shelley asked. "Surely you'd heard that there was a possibility that he'd turn up there."
“Because Julie told me that he wasn't coming after all. And besides, I thought I'd gotten rid of him," Sharon said. "After about six months of trying to fend him off, I told him I'd recordedhis remarks about cheating the university and changing his grades and other people's and if he didn't leave me alone, I'd turn over a copy to the television station and insurance carrier."
“He believed it?" Shelley asked.
“Not quite, but I was a lot smarter by then and a much better liar. I did have a tape recorder at the time that I used a lot. I told him I'd been planning to divorce him for a long time and had recorded many of our conversations just in case he decided to contest the divorce action. Went on to explain that I'd made copies of the tapes, put them in my safe deposit box along with a notarized, dated transcript done by another attorney. I really spread myself thin on the story. I blabbed about how I had a client who said a competing television station was considering getting their own 'action reporter' and mentioned what a coup those tapes would be for them as their first story."
“You're good!" Jane exclaimed.
“It seemed to work," Sharon said modestly. "I don't think he entirely believed me, but he couldn't take the chance of losing his nasty little career. I didn't hear from him again. But there was something else that I couldn't undo…"
“Which was?" Shelley asked.
“During the time he was bugging me, he decided he could exert pressure on me by investigating my friends and neighbors. Nothing he could be prosecuted for, just hints. 'So-and-so's been divorced three times; wonder if his wife knows that?' he'd say. Or 'Such-and-such has a couple shoplifting arrests in her past. Isn't that interesting?' “
Jane had been leaning forward, listening intently. Now she flopped back on the sofa and exchanged a look with Shelley. "That answers one question, doesn't it? Shelley and I were wondering how he could get invited to the party one day and pretend to have an exposé on the neighborhood ready by the next day. He already had material!"
“Have you told the police all this?" Shelley asked sharply.
“Of course I have," Sharon said. "I have nothing to conceal and no sympathy for Harvey or the person who killed him — whoever that was."
“I presume you're not going to tell us who he said these things about," Jane said. "And frankly, I don't think you should. But you did tell the police, right?”
Sharon nodded. "I told them what little I could remember. But I was so disgusted with most of the junk he told me that I made a real effort to put it out of my mind and a few of the things I do recall were about people who have moved away."
“So you have no idea who might have killed him?" Jane asked.
“None. And I don't care.”
The pack of cigarettes was open now and she was rolling one of them between her fingers.
Sixteen
"Do we believe her?" Shelley asked as they V walked back to her house.
“I'd like to," Jane replied, "but she admitted she was a good liar. Maybe she's lying to us and the police about her marriage and background."
“It makes sense," Shelley said. "If it's a lie, it's an elaborate, well-thought-out one. It might be that most of it is true, but parts aren't."
“Which parts?”
Shelley said, "I have no idea. But did you notice how calm her voice was — and all the while she was ripping into that pack of historical cigarettes? Let's assume she's telling mostly the truth. The weak points are, first, that she did get rid of him like she said, but then he started harassing her again and she killed him."
“I don't think she was dressed for it," Jane said.
“Dressed for murder? You mean she wasn't wearing a Ninja outfit?"
“No, she had on heels and a fairly tight skirt the night he was killed. It would be damned hard to hoist yourself up an icy ladder in that getup."
“But not impossible," Shelley said. "Her boots were probably in the front hall of your house. Put them on, dash outside, hitch up the tight skirt. Yeah, yeah. Unlikely."
“What's the next weak point she could be lying about?"
“Not knowing who her ex-husband had the dirt on. Or not remembering. That doesn't ring true. If you told me Mrs. Whatsis down the street was the head witch of a coven, I'd sure remember it for a long time."
“But Shelley, we're snoops—"
“No, we're curious women who are concerned with the welfare of our friends," Shelley said.
Jane didn't quibble. "Okay, we're curious, but what's more important, we actually know most of the neighbors. She doesn't seem to be really chummy with much of anyone because she's gone so much of the time. It wouldn't be too surprising if she didn't reca
ll the dirty details years later about someone she never even met or heard of before.”
They'd reached Jane's house. "Paul is taking the kids to a fast-food dinner and a movie tonight," Shelley said. "I don't have to fix dinner. Can you fling some edibles at your kids and we could go eat together?"
“My kids are stuffed to the gills with leftover cookies. They probably won't even consider food for hours. It's not quite five yet. Let's gonow. I'll make sure of where they are and what they're doing and be over in a minute.”
Jane went in the kitchen door and was heading upstairs to refresh her makeup when Katie called down the steps, "Hey, Mom, did you see the boxes?"
“What boxes?" Jane turned and looked toward the front door. Three or four battered cardboard cartons were piled up. "Oh, that must be the stuff from your grandparents. They've been fretting about them not arriving in time."
“Can we open them?”
Jane continued up the steps. "Sure. They always wrap the individual gifts inside the big boxes. Put the gifts under the tree. And no peeking or shaking."
“You're not going to lecture me again about that little china tea set I broke when I was a little kid, are you?"
“Any second now. You guys aren't hungry yet, are you?”
Katie blew up her cheeks and shook her head. "Food — yuck!"
“Then I'm going to go out with Mrs. Nowack. How about I bring back barbequed ribs?”
Jane took their dinner orders and hurried to Shelley's house. The kids had stuffed themselves with cookies, but she hadn't had any and lunch was a long time ago. She was starving. Shelley already had her car warming up in the driveway.
“Since we still look fairly decent, let's go someplace kind of nice," Shelley suggested.
There was a new French restaurant a couple miles away they'd been wanting to try, but hadn't pulled themselves together and put on panty hose and heels to give it a shot yet. Once again, they were almost the only customers because they were so early. A very handsome young waiter in a tuxedo seated them, actually holding their chairs and flipping open generously sized blue napkins that he laid reverently on the women's laps.
“Wow!" Jane whispered when he left to get their menus. "I could get used to this. Especially if all the waiters look like him.”
He was back in a moment with the menus, which were leather-bound and enormous. He had another server with him, this one in a short white jacket. He carried a silver tray with two exquisite goblets of water. The waiter explained the specials of the day with loving purple prose and a lot of French terms Jane should have understood and didn't.
“What are those in English?" she asked.
“Translated loosely," he said, lowering his voice, "meat loaf and stew. But the best meat loaf or stew that you'll ever taste."
“Shelley, let's have one of each. And we could trade."
“Jane, we do not pass food back and forth here," Shelley hissed. "Your parents would have strokes if they heard you suggesting something so gauche."
“I could give you each a half order of both," the waiter suggested.
“You're a good man," Jane said. "And why don't you just give us a wine you recommend so I won't feel silly about ordering it?”
That got him to crack a smile.
When he was out of earshot, Jane leaned forward and said quietly, "These fancy plates on the table — chargers, I think they're called?”
“What about them?"
“Well, nobody ever eats on them. They take them away when they serve dinner, so do they have to be washed?”
Shelley stared at her for a long moment and said, "Have you considered psychiatric care?”
“I just wondered. They've got this nice gold rim, so they couldn't be put in a dishwasher and it seems a waste of time and effort to make people wash them by hand when nobody's ever eaten off them.”
Shelley rolled her eyes and said, "Wonder about Sharon Wilhite instead. She said she'd told the police everything she told us. I imagine that's true. She must know you're involved with Mel. He was at the party."
“Do you think she even noticed? Come to think of it, it must be a blot on his copybook to have someone murdered practically under his nose. I'll call and ask him this evening if Sharon told him the same thing."
“Wonder why he didn't tell us?" Shelley said as the white-jacketed server whisked away the ashtray that Jane had put only a speck of ash in and replaced it with a fresh one.
“For one thing, he's not really supposed to tell us anything about an investigation, although he sometimes does. For another, there really hasn't been any chance to talk with him without Addie barging in."
“Say, that's interesting," Shelley mused. "He does tell us some things he probably shouldn't.
But he doesn't want to talk about them to Addie. Indicates a relative scale of trust, huh?”
Jane smiled. "Maybe. Or he just knows she's not interested. If Sharon told him what she told us, I imagine he has ways of checking the main facts — like where they went to college, when each of them moved here. Stuff like that."
“Jane, we didn't order appetizers."
“Talk about priorities!" Jane said with a laugh.
Shelley had barely time to turn and look for the handsome waiter before he appeared as if by magic. He suggested an order of buttered, toasted French bread rounds with pâté, and another of broiled eggplant with a lemon and garlic sauce.
After that, Shelley and Jane turned their attention from murder to food.
“Why didn't you even let me see the bill?" Jane asked as they departed an hour later. "I would have at least done the tip."
“You don't want to know what it cost. Take my word for it. But after two parties back-to-back, you deserve to be treated.”
Knowing how very much money the Nowacks had and how stingy Shelley usually was with it, Jane accepted the fact that Shelley was right.
Jane came in the house via the kitchen a few minutes later, put the carry-out food on the kitchen table with some paper plates left from the caroling party, and went to yell up the steps. She tripped over a pile of rubble. Boxes andpink Styrofoam peanuts were all over the hallway.
“Hey, guys! Your food is here," she bellowed. "And you can have it when this mess is cleaned up."
“Sorry, Mom," Katie said, bounding down the stairs. "We forgot. Oh, and we made a mistake. We assumed all the boxes were gifts and ripped into one that's not even meant for us. I don't know why the mailman left it here."
“Where was it supposed to go?"
“To those people next door. The Johnsons."
“Okay, Mike can take the box over and explain when you've got the rest of this tidied up “
Jane changed into comfortable clothes, fended off a telephone call from a roofing and siding company ("You're calling me on Saturday night?"), and went downstairs with the full intention to spend a mindless evening in front of the television, or maybe playing gin on her laptop.
The debris in the front hall was gone. All but the gaping box of books that belonged to the Johnsons. Jane bent over to see what kind of books they were and discovered that they were all the same book. Why would the Johnsons be getting what appeared to be a couple dozen of the same title? Good Lord, did they intend to go door-to-door selling them or something?
She picked one up, read the cover copy, flipped through a few pages, then turned it over. The couple who wrote the book were pictured on the back. She glanced at the picture and set the book back in the box. She headed for the living room, but came to a dead halt in the doorway. She returned to the box, took one of the books back out, and carried it into the kitchen where the light was better. She studied the photo on the back again.
“Kids, I'll be back in a minute. Just running over to the Nowacks'. Don't anybody touch that box of books until I get home.”
Shelley was already in her nightgown and robe. "You again?" she said with a smile.
“I want to show you something," Jane said, coming into Shelley's disgustingly clean ki
tchen. She handed Shelley the book.
“Oh, yes. I didn't know this was out yet. I've seen a couple excellent reviews of it. You've read these people before, haven't you?"
“I don't think so," Jane said.
“Oh, sure you have. The authors are a couple of — what do they call themselves? — cultural psychologists, or something. They've done three or four really fascinating, best-selling books about different subcultures of American society. Real readable stuff. I think the last one was about a largely Hispanic town in Texas someplace. They don't do that usual visitingresearcher-questionnaire kind of thing. They just move in the neighborhood as ordinary people and learn about their neighbors.”
Jane nodded. "I see. It makes sense. Come sit down and study the book, Shelley."
“Why? You want me to read the whole thing right now?"
“No, I just want you to look at it thoroughly.”
“Is this some kind of game? You must be really bored.”
“Indulge me.”
Shelley sat down and read the material on the front flap, skimmed the chapter headings, read the back cover flap, then turned the book over. She set it down on the table. "Okay, so I've looked it over and I still don't get wha—”
She frowned for a moment, picked the book back up and turned it over. She studied the picture of the authors for a long moment. Then she looked up at Jane. Her jaw dropped and her eyes opened very wide. "Jane—?"
“Uh-huh?"
“This picture," Shelley said haltingly. "You'll think I'm crazy, but it looks like a glamour shot of Billy Joe and Tiffany.”
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